Integrative Alternative Doctor

If you are already under a medical doctor's care in Los Angeles, but you want to include alternatives to get better results or prevent chronic disease, you may be considering using another medical doctor for your complementary, integrative, or alternative care. That's like buying the same item twice from different supermarkets. Why would you bother? Was the display or packaging different? They are identical. Why do that?

As most people, you might get comfortable with the way you understand conventional disease management/medical care, and get caught in the routine of repeating the same things you have done before. You are likely already familiar with the way you get examined and treated by medical doctors: the types of tests they use, like blood tests and x-rays, and the type of beliefs and philosophy the doctors have. So, out of habit, you might seek more of the familiar; even though you know that something is missing from your conventional medical disease-care, and that even their methods of early detection are not enough to help you. That's why you seek complementary care in the first place, and need a alternative doctor in Los Angeles who has the ability to see things differently than just another MD in disguise.

Still, your initial idea may be that you can find another medical doctor who might use some natural medicines, unlike your current doctors, even though he/she is schooled under the same institutional banner, and practices largely the same as other medical doctors. But even if a candidate doctor claims to be different, and you want to believe him/her, at least for now, you really only feel like choosing "more of the same" because thefamiliar presents no risk to you, and what's familiar feels safe.

Different Dr., same types of tests. Didn't you already have those kinds of tests?

What's the difference? If the candidate doctor says he/she is "holistic" but his/her philosophy and beliefs are the same as all other medical doctors—that your body is incapable of regulating on its own, and needs drugs to help—then you will only be getting more of the same treatment.

Even if that familiarity feels "safe" to you, you know that more of the same just won't work. That's why you are looking for complementary, integrative, or alternative care; because your treatments are not working well for you. You know you need an alternative doctor for your complementary care, to address what a medical doctor misses. You already know that Medicine is not a perfect science. So why buy the same item because it is dressed differently? You need a real alternative doctor, not another MD.

In Los Angeles, your way to know if any of your new "holistic doctor" candidates are really just more of the same, is to ask yourself this simple question: Do they prescribe drugs, or recommend over-the-counter drugs, to any of their patients? Even if you get told that no drugs will be used with you: Do they? If you know the answer is yes, then you know their beliefs about your body are no different than any other medical doctor you may see. As you know, medicine isn't perfect. So, for complementary, integrative, or alternative care, do you really want someone who has the same underlying beliefs, and limitations as your current medical doctor? Why bother? He believes your body is incapable of healing and repairing without drugs, surgery or radiation therapy. That's a false medical belief system, not science. Must you believe that too?

A Fundamental Medical Belief System

Here is the key point: the choice to use any over-the-counter drugs or prescription drugs in medical practice indicates the doctor's fundamental belief system: a belief that your body is wholly incapable of helping itself without these substances. How's that for "holistic?" Why would a doctor prescribe such chemicals without the belief that your body is wholly unable to function without them? Why would he recommend them to anyone else if he believed that their body could function without them? The reason a doctor would ever use drugs is due to the doctor's own belief that the human body is incapable of self regulating and self healing without using these substances.

Complementary Care

Don't be fooled into thinking that your complementary care would act against your current medical plan/roadmap if your complementary integrative, or alternative care were to be given by a licensed professional other than a medical doctor. That's just medical sales-talk. Any licensed practitioner who takes-on the role to manage your complementary integrative care as part of your medical team will do a full history and consultation with you, and be willing to have open communication with any of your medical doctors. Any practitioner who wouldn't be willing to discuss their approach in your complementary care should be avoided.

Don't ask a surgeon about complementary care, or nutrition,
and don't ask a nutritionist about surgery

When seeking advice regarding complementary integrative or alternative care, BEWARE! You should never take the advice of someone who never practiced, is not immersed in, and does not fully understand, a complementary, integrative and alternative kind of practice. Without telling you not to listen to your medical doctor on things for which he is not an expert (because of no formal training in alternative, complementary and integrative approaches such as functional medicine, clinical nutrition, or even "muscle testing"), you should understand that a conventional MD knows nothing about alternative and complementary approaches. Nothing.

Taking unqualified opinions from a non-expert in the science of complementary care can be confusing and terribly misleading. You need advice from a different kind of doctor; an alternative doctor. Finding and choosing an integrative chiropractor / alternative doctor who really understands the science of complementary care, requires breaking away from unqualified opinions.

Integrative Doctor

Here is a different understanding of how your body functions, from an exclusively different philosophy and belief system when compared to the medical "your body is incapable" belief. Since I am an integrative chiropractor, I teach chiropractic principles such as: "your body is a potentially self healing, self regulating organism." You might think: 'Sure, but that's not different than a medical doctor's beliefs, because sometimes a person needs to take prescriptions, or over-the-counter medications.' However, if you are willing to pause for a minute and take a step away from that ingrained belief, I can show you how it is different... Just for a minute, allow yourself to think that maybe there really is a difference between these beliefs. Either your body is incapable, or your body is potentially self healing and self regulating.

Outside of life-threatening emergencies, if your body has the potential to self repair, heal, and self regulate, then why would you have to use a chemical substance that forces a reaction in your body? You know, that's what drugs do: they force a reaction in your body. Their purpose is narrow and meant to change a symptom, or a number related to a test result, and, in effect, overwhelm your body's current state of equilibrium, to force a change. If your body is truly incapable of helping itself, then of course you would need many different drugs to force many different reactions in your body. If you think that sometimes a person needs a drug to force a reaction in the body because "just at that time" the body is incapable to self regulate, then your philosophy is that the body is incapable. Period. It is either incapable or it is potentially self regulating. It can't be both, and it can't be that the body is just a little incapable, because it only needs one drug.

Chiropractic principlesteach the opposite, and hold that the body is a potentially self healing and self regulating organism. But just hold-on a second, put your defenses down for just a moment more to let yourself out of the all-too-familiar, ingrained-belief and philosophy that "drugs are needed." For just a moment more, let this alternative idea have a chance to sink in.

Imagine that your body is truly self healing and self regulating. Just imagine that for a second. Can you see it? Wait... Is something still not right? Is there a problem believing this idea because your body isn't well? You might ask: How can my body be self healing and self regulating if I already have a chronic disease and it is not getting better? Doesn't that prove that the body is incapable and needs a drug?

That is a very important question! Here's why the answer is no. The key word in this chiropractic principle is "potential." Your body certainly has the potential to be self healing, self repairing and self regulating. Chiropractors know that this is due to your body's innate intelligence. However, a chiropractor should also know that if there's something in the way of perfect communication throughout your brain and nervous system, the central controlling system of your whole body, then this natural potential can get diminished (less light, sub-lux-ated). This is the opposite of the philosophy proclaiming that the body is incapable.

Every body will function better with a better functioning nervous system.

Chiropractic principles teach the principle that your body has the potential, no matter how broken down it may be, to self-heal, self-repair, and self-regulate. The only thing that holds it back from its full potential is when something is in the way of brain-nervous system communications. No drug could ever restore this innate potential of your body. The innate is there, yet there are things that can get in the way. Those things are not caused by diseases. Diseases, much like breast cancer, are the end results of blocked healing potential, not the causes. We use chiropractic adjustments, and whole food nutritional supplements to help unblock your healing potential.

The Opposite of Drugs

The opposite of drugs is whole food: which is the most important thing for your body. Whole food, or whole food supplementation, does not force a reaction in your body. It does not override your body's equilibrium to force a change. Its purpose is broad and meant to nourish your entire body, while promoting health and wellness.

How to choose an Authentic Alternative Doctor

If you were about to choose an integrative "alternative" doctor, but he uses drugs, you might as well get it at the same place you already get your medical care. Why even bother? However, if he uses foods, but not drugs, that's in line with chiropractic principles. Also, you'll need access to chiropractic adjustments for your full, integrative, health empowerment. You just can't get that from anyone but a chiropractor. Integrative medicine means integrating the care of your whole body including spinal care and nourishment, instead of just focusing on one area of your body. Functional medicine means improving your body's function, not just looking at killing disease and stopping symptoms.

When you realize that you want your complementary care to truly be a complement to your body, to help healing happen, instead of just another window dressing of medicine to cover symptoms, then you will seek the care of an integrative chiropractor who does not recommend drugs, and will help you to understand why your body is temporarily not self-healing, or self-regulating. Your holistic practitioner should be able to explain this to you, without blaming it on your end-result disease.